The King's Achievement eBook

Again he waited for an answer, and again Chris was
silent. His soul was so desolate that he could
not trust himself to say all that he felt.

“You must wait a little,” went on the
Prior, “recommend yourself to our Lady and our
Patron, and then leave yourself in their hands.
You will know better when you have had a few days.
Will you do this, and then come to me again?”

“Yes, my Lord Prior,” said Chris, and
he took up the letter, bowed, and went out.

* * * *
*

Within the week relief and knowledge came to him.
He had done what the monk had told him, and it had
been followed by a curious sense of relief at the
thought suggested to him that the responsibility of
decision did not rest on him but on his heavenly helpers.
And then as he served mass the answer came.

It was in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, a little
building entered from the north transept, with its
windows opening directly on to the road leading up
into the town; there was no one there but the two.
It was about seven o’clock on the feast of the
Seven Martyrs, and the chapel was full of a diffused
tender morning light, for the chapel was sheltered
from the direct sunshine by the tall church on its
south.

As they went up to the altar the bell sounded for
the Elevation at the high-altar of the church, at
the missa familiaris, and the footstep of someone
passing through the north transept ceased instantly
at the sound. The priest ascended the steps,
set down the vessels, spread the corporal, opened
the book, and came down again for the preparation.
There was no one else in the chapel, and the peace
of the place in the summer light, only vitalized by
the brisk chirping of a sparrow under the eaves, entered
into Christopher’s soul.

As the mass went on it seemed as if a veil were lifting
from his spirit, and leaving it free and sensible
again. The things around him fell into their
proper relationships, and there was no doubt in his
mind that this newly restored significance of theirs
was their true interpretation. They seemed penetrated
and suffused by the light of the inner world; the
red-brocaded chasuble moving on a level with his eyes,
stirring with the shifting of the priest’s elbows,
was more than a piece of rich stuff, the white alb
beneath more than mere linen, the hood thrown back
in the amice a sacramental thing. He looked up
at the smoky yellow flames against the painted woodwork
at the back of the altar, at the discoloured stones
beside the grey window-mouldings still with the slanting
marks of the chisel upon them, at the black rafters
overhead, and last out through the shafted window
at the heavy July foliage of the elm that stood by
the road and the brilliant morning sky beyond; and
once more he saw what these things meant and conveyed
to an immortal soul. The words that he had said
during these last weeks so mechanically were now rich
and alive again, and as he answered the priest he
perceived the spiritual vibration of them in the inner
world of which his own soul was but a part. And
then the climax was reached, and he lifted the skirt
of the vestment with his left hand and shook the bell
in his right; the last shreds of confusion were gone,
and his spirit basked tranquil and content and certain
again in the light that was newly risen on him.